Most of you know Adrienne Barbeau as Beatrice Arthur’s daughter, Carol Findlay, on the long-running Norman Lear series Maude, while horror movie fans know her best for her performances in The Fog, Escape From New York, Creepshow, Swamp Thing and other popular motion pictures. Adrienne also starred as Ruthie, the Snake Dancer, on HBO’sCarnivale, plus she played Oswald’s mom on The Drew Carey Show, Victoria Grayson’s mom on Revenge, Venus’ mom on Sons of Anarchy, and the voice of Catwoman onBatman: The Animated Series, while her stage career includes more than twenty-five theatrical productions in the U.S. and Canada, including the original Broadway production of Grease (where she played Rizzo), Tevye’s daughter in Fiddler on the Roof, and, more recently, Pippin’s grandmother, Berthe, in the national tour of Pippin—a role that required Adrienne to perform the song “No Time at All” while hanging upside down on a trapeze.

This week’s show, which marks the tenth anniversary of the debut of TV Confidential, will also feature Will Ryan and Michael Schlesinger. Will is the star, along with Nick Santa Maria, and Mike is the writer, producer and director, of The Misadventures of Biffle and Shooster—a collection of 1930s-style comedies that pay homage to The Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy and other vintage comedy teams from the Golden Era of Hollywood. Mike, Will and Nick made the Biffle and Shooster films over the last five years—yet the sets, the camera shots, the attention to detail, and, above all, the performances of everyone involved are all so convincing, they look and sound as if they really were unearthed from the 1930s. We’ll talk about that, and more, when Will and Mike join us in our first hour.

The Misadventures of Biffle and Shooster is a collection of five comedy shorts (all but one of which was filmed in black and white), including “The Biffle Murder Case,” “Imitation of Wife,” “Schmo Boat,” “Bride of Finklestein,” and “It’s a Frame Up,” while guests stars include H.M. Wynant, Dick Miller, Andrew Parks, Robert Forster and Robert Picardo. The DVD also includes a ton of bonus features, including an additional short (“First Things Last”), more than an hour of bloopers and outtakes, and a 1962-style “reunion” interview that Will and Nick perform in character as Biffle and Shooster. (“The Biffle Murder Case,” “Imitation of Wife,” “Schmo Boat,” “Bride of Finklestein,” and “It’s a Frame Up” are also available for viewing on demand on Amazon, Vudu and other streaming platforms, under the umbrella title The Adventures of Biffle and Shooster.)

Speaking on behalf of Tony, Donna, Phil, Greg, Chris and everyone else who has helped us put together TV Confidential over the past ten years, our heartfelt thanks to you, our audience—not only for listening to us, but making us part of your life. We have some exciting new elements that we will introduce to TV Confidential in the weeks and months ahead. We look forward to sharing them with you and spending more time together.

TV Confidential has its own YouTube channel, YouTube.com/tvconfidential. There, you can also listen to recent episodes, on demand, and for free. If you visit our YouTube channel, please take a moment and hit the Subscribe button… and thanks!

If you listen to TV Confidential, and like what you hear, please consider supporting our efforts by becoming a patron of our show through Patreon. It’s easy to do, it will not cost you much, plus you’ll receive some cool rewards every month. To find out more, please visit https://www.patreon.com/tvconfidential (where you can also listen to the last few shows on demand, for free)… and thank you!
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Barbara van Orden began her career as a nightclub singer in the Catskill Mountains, opening for Milton Berle, Don Rickles, Red Buttons, and others before performing alongside Buddy Hackett, Soupy Sales and Morey Amsterdam in Playboy Clubs across the country, as well as opening for Frank Sinatra in the legendary Persian Room in New York City. Sinatra not only took Barbara under his wing early in her career, but encouraged her to help other young artists down the road just as he had helped her.

Today, among other things, Barbara is paying it forward through co-executive producing, along with Michael Sterling, the twelfth annual LA’s Next Great Stage Star Competition, the only musical theatre competition of its kind on the West Coast. Now in its twelfth year, LA’s Next Great Stage Star Competition provides a spotlight for undiscovered performers between the ages of eighteen and thirty-two with “triple threat” talent (meaning, they must excel in acting, voice and dance). Over the years, more than twenty contestants from LA’s Next Great Stage Star Competition have made their Broadway and/or Off-Broadway debuts, while 50 percent of the remaining overall contestants have not only received professional Equity theatrical agency representation, but have gone on to join U.S. National Broadway Tours in starring, featured and ensemble roles. In addition, other Stage Star contestants have found work in regional theatres throughout Southern California and across the country (including major Las Vegas hotels that house long-running Broadway musical productions), as well as local, national and international theme parks, cruise line productions, commercials, and film and TV productions.

Also joining us this weekend will be actor Sam Medina. If you follow martial arts movies, you know Sam as the antagonistic Crawford in Kickboxer: Vengeance and Kickboxer: Retaliation. If you watch the AMC series Preacher, you know Sam as Samarai Guy, while viewers of From Dusk to Dawn: The Series know him as Razor Charlie. Sam’s other film and TV credits include Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Tracers, Savages, Dragon Eyes, The Baytown Outlaws, Let’s Be Cops, Ant-Man, Treme, Army Wives, MacGyver, and NCIS: Los Angeles.

Sam plays Axel, the lead antagonist opposite Mark Wahlberg, in the action/thriller Mile 22, which opens in theaters everywhere on Friday, Aug 17. We’ll talk to Sam about working alongside Wahlberg and director Peter Berg in Mile 22 (including shooting part of the film on location in Bogota), plus we’ll ask him about his roots in New Orleans and the role he played to help rebuild the city after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina; how he approaches playing villains, even when the character requires him to go to a dark place; working with Tom Hardy in the new Marvel adventure Venom (which opens in theaters on Friday, Oct. 5); and how he will make his directorial debut later this year in Code Name: The Dragon, an action movie starring MMA superstar Cung Le. Sam Medina will join us in our first hour.

Also this week: We will circle back to a program we did earlier this year when we welcome back singer, producer and music and TV historian Geoffrey Mark. You might recall that we had a roundtable discussion with Tony Figueroa and Donna Allen in which we talked about the original Will and Grace and whether that series falls under the realm of “classic television.” While some will say yes, just as many would say no because their definition of “classic television” is restricted to a certain period of time. That morphed into a conversation about How Would You Define a Classic TV Show? Geoff has a few thoughts on this matter, which we’ll ask him about when he joins us in our first hour. He will also share a story about a word of advice that Rip Taylor once gave him that changed the course of Geoff’s career.

]]>http://blog.ksav.org/?feed=rss2&p=14680Robert Crane, Audrey Walters, and the Allure of Green Acres: Next on TVChttp://blog.ksav.org/?p=1466
http://blog.ksav.org/?p=1466#commentsWed, 25 Jul 2018 23:49:06 +0000http://blog.ksav.org/?p=1466Screenwriter and journalist Robert Crane and actress, teacher and entrepreneur Audrey Walters will join us this weekend on TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Friday at 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org.

The eldest son of actor Bob Crane, Robert Crane is a successful freelance journalist, screenwriter and author who has interviewed a host of actors, comedians, studio executives, writers, directors, musicians and other creative people for Playboy, Playgirl, Oui, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. One of those assignments led to Bob to a six-year association as a publicist, producer and confidant to actor John Candy.

Bob’s latest book, Hollywood Plateau, is a collection of candid interviews with the likes of Jimmy Kimmel, Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, Spinal Tap, Bruce Dern, John Wayne, Jack Nicholson, Chevy Chase, Jamie Foxx, Cheech and Chong, the cast of SCTV, Oscar de la Hoya, and Jan Stephenson that Bob originally conducted over a forty-year period (circa 1974 to 2013), prior to the era of political correctness—a time when industry people spoke their minds without self and organizational censorship. In many cases, Bob interviewed these celebrities when they were just coming onto the scene, and before they became as famous (or, as in the case of Barr, infamous) as we know them to be today. We’ll talk about that, plus we’ll hear some of the back stories of these conversations—including how Bob came to interview Koko, the sign-language-speaking gorilla.

Bob also put together a special ten-question TV trivia quiz in which every question relates to the career of his dad. See how many answers you know when Robert Crane joins us in our second hour.

This week’s program will also feature actress, teacher and entrepreneur Audrey Walters. As an actress, Audrey has appeared in such films and TV series as Preacher, Killer Women, What if?, Mile High Laci, Revenge for Real: Rocky Mountain Retribution, The Lake, Camouflage, Diablo Canyon, and After the Fall. When she is not acting, Audrey draws on her background as a broadcast journalist and entrepreneur to co-run the youth workshop Talk to the Camera, which helps elementary and middle school children develop their social communication skills through exercises and activities that require them to make eye contact with other people. Though Talk to the Camera is based in Denver, Colorado, it has recently expanded to two other states, while franchising opportunities remain available. We will talk about that, and more, when Audrey Walters joins us in our second hour.

Audrey Walters plays a sultry, take-charge Madame in Big Kill, a Western from Archstone Pictures starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Jason Patric and Danny Trejo that will be released later this year in theaters and Video on Demand. She also appears as real estate agent Mrs. Boychuk in the dark comedy Arizona, which premiered earlier in 2018 at Sundance and which will also be released theatrically and On Demand either late summer or early fall.

Plus: With a stage production of Green Acres now in the works, Greg Ehrbar will revisit the long-running CBS series from the mid 1960s that, in many respects, was the closest thing American television came to capturing the genius and absurdity of Monty Python.

]]>http://blog.ksav.org/?feed=rss2&p=14660Peter Mark Richman: Next on TVChttp://blog.ksav.org/?p=1463
http://blog.ksav.org/?p=1463#commentsTue, 17 Jul 2018 20:00:32 +0000http://blog.ksav.org/?p=1463Actor, author and artist Peter Mark Richman and TV and music historian Chuck Harter will join us this weekend on a brand new edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Friday at 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org.

As an actor, Peter Mark Richman draws from a deep well of experience on the Broadway stage, motion pictures and television, including starring roles in his own series, Cain’s Hundred, as well as on Longstreet and Santa Barbara; recurring roles on such shows as Dynasty, Beverly Hills 90210 and, of course, Three’s Company; and guest star roles in more than 500 other TV series, including Murder She Wrote, Fantasy Island, Twilight Zone, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Mission: Impossible, and just about every show produced by Quinn Martin.

Though most of us think of Peter Mark Richman as an actor—and particularly, an actor who was often cast as a heavy on television—he is much, much more than that. As a writer, his play A Medal for Murray was translated into Hebrew, premiered in Tel Aviv and had a two-year run in Israel, plus he received a Drama Critics Award for 4 Faces, a play that Peter Mark also starred in, and which he performed in New York and Los Angeles and later adapted into a film. In addition, he published a novel, Hollander’s Deal, and a book of short stories, The Rebirth of Ira Masters, while his one-act plays have been produced by the American National Theater and Academy and the Actors Studio, the latter of which Peter Mark has been a member and supporter of for more than six decades. Also an accomplished painter and sketch artist, Peter Mark has had seventeen critically acclaimed one-man exhibitions over the years.

If that’s not enough, Peter Mark Richman is also a registered pharmacist in the states of New York and Pennsylvania. As a matter of fact, at a critical point in his career Peter Mark left the security of a $35 a week job as a pharmacist in Pennsylvania to take a chance on a life as a stage actor. While that risk ultimately paid off, Peter Mark still had to overcome the chaos of growing up in a dysfunctional family before leaving his mark as an actor and an artist. We’ll ask him how he did that, and more, when Peter Mark Richman joins us in our second hour.

Peter Mark Richman’s latest book, I Saw a Molten White Light: An Autobiography of My Artistic and Spiritual Journey, is rich with many stories about Peter Mark’s work on stage, film and television, including the pivotal role that the Actors Studio has played throughout his life; insight into “The Method” and what made Lee Strasberg singular among acting teachers; his experience working with the likes of William Wyler, Gary Cooper, Jack Klugman, Dorothy Dandridge and Rod Serling; and how a vision Peter Mark once saw as a young boy became clear to him many years later, with the help of a spiritual exercise known as Subud.

Chuck Harter will join us in our first hour as we take a look at Shindig, Hullabaloo, Where the Action Is and other national and syndicated pop music TV shows of the mid to late 1960s. Spurred on in part by the British Invasion—and, specifically, such shows as Top of the Pops and Ready Steady Go—these shows provided a weekly (or, in the case of Where the Action Is, daily) national TV showcase for such popular groups as The Kinks, The Righteous Brothers, Herman’s Hermits, Darlene Love, Paul Revere and The Raiders, and Ike and Tina Turner. But, as Chuck points out, these shows also broke ground in that, in many respects, they were produced specifically for young viewers.

Plus: We will pay tribute to Roger Perry, the stage, film and television actor who was also a talented songwriter and composer. Roger Perry passed away on Thursday, July 12; we’ll replay our conversation with him from November 2017 as part of our program this week.

]]>http://blog.ksav.org/?feed=rss2&p=14630Ken Berry and Gary Lockwood: Next on TVChttp://blog.ksav.org/?p=1461
http://blog.ksav.org/?p=1461#commentsWed, 11 Jul 2018 01:50:20 +0000http://blog.ksav.org/?p=1461Actors Ken Berry and Gary Lockwood will join us this weekend as part of an encore edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Friday 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org.

Once described as “a double-triple threat” because of his accomplishments as a singer, dancer and actor on stage, film, on television, Ken Berry has entertained audiences for more than six decades. That’s a claim that not every performer can make.

Ken will share a few memories about his career in the entertainment industry, from his early years with the Billy Barnes Revue and working in Las Vegas alongside Abbott and Costello, to his successful runs on F Troop, Mayberry, R.F.D., and Mama’s Family. We’ll talk about his friendship with Buster Keaton (not to mention the major influence the silent film star had on his career), the important roles that Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball and Leonard Nimoy all played in various points in his career, his many appearance on top TV variety shows and specials, and a few other surprises. Ken Berry will join us in our first hour.

Most of you know Gary Lockwood as Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey, while Trekkies know him as Gary Mitchell in “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the second pilot for the original Star Trek. He has also worked with such film and TV legends as Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, Anthony Perkins, Joshua Logan, Elia Kazan, Elvis Presley, Natalie Wood, Basil Rathbone, Anthony Quinn, and, of course, Stanley Kubrick.

Gary was also a fixture on prime time television for more than four decades, including such classic shows as Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Night Gallery, Mission: Impossible, The Six Million Dollar Man, Murder, She Wrote, and many of the crime dramas produced by Quinn Martin. In addition, he headlined his own series, The Lieutenant, the first series created by Gene Roddenberry. Gary Lockwood will join us in our second hour.

His name may not jump out at you immediately, but Steve Bluestein has left his mark on comedy, television, movies and the stage for more than four decades. As a stand-up comedian Steve has performed in venues all over the country, opening for the likes of Barry Manilow, Phyllis Diller, Laurie Kazan and others, while he has appeared on just about every major comedy show and cable channel, including Showtime, HBO, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Evening at the Improv and Caroline’s Comedy Hour. Working behind the scenes, Steve has written for the likes of Norman Lear, Joan Rivers and Liz Torres, as well as such shows as 13 East, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour and the ABC special Playboy’s Playmate Party. He also produced segments for FOX’s Totally Hidden Video and The New Candid Camera for Universal, while audiences saw Steve’s design skills on display when his home was featured on HGTV’s You’re Home. Steve’s first play, Rest, In Pieces, has been optioned for Broadway and is scheduled to be produced in the fall of 2018; his other plays include Alzheimer: A Black Comedy, which had its first staged reading earlier this summer at the Waco Theater in North Hollywood.

Steve’s new book, Memoir of a Nobody, is a funny and poignant look at life, love, comedy, show business and overcoming such obstacles as a difficult childhood and bouts of depression. In many respects, Memoir of a Nobody is also very timely. We’ll tell you why when Steve Bluestein joins us in our second hour.

Donelle Dadigan is also the founder of The Jose Iturbi Foundation, which is dedicated to making classical music accessible and enjoyable to people of all ages and walks of life, and to fulfill Iturbi’s desire of bringing emerging talents and prize-winning musicians to the attention of the public. On Thursday, July 12, The Jose Iturbi Foundation will host a concert at The Hollywood Bowl featuring soloist Khatia Buniatishvili, who will bring Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto to life with precision and power. For tickets and information, go to https://hollywoodbowl.com.

Since making his professional acting debut in 1971 in the iconic film Summer of ’42, Jerry Houser has worked virtually nonstop in film and television, both in front of and behind the camera as a voice actor and producer, including many animated productions for Disney and Hanna-Barbera (among others), commercials for such products as Keebler Cookies, plus he’s the voice you hear on CBS every year during the holiday season. If you’re a fan of The Brady Bunch, you know Jerry as Wally Logan, Marcia’s husband, on The Brady Brides, A Very Brady Christmas and the spinoff series The Bradys, while hockey fans know him best as Dave “Killer” Carlson in the original Slap Shot starring Paul Newman.

Jerry Houser has also had a passion for teaching from a young age. He, along with Robb Holt, provides a personal yet professional workshop for beginners, both here in Los Angeles as well as private sessions via Skype, for those who are interested beginning in a voiceover career. We’ll ask Jerry what casting directors are looking for in voice artists today (and how to find your own voice in today’s competitive market), plus he’ll share a few memories from his film and TV career when he joins us in our second hour.

Also joining us in our second hour will be longtime television writer Paul Robert Coyle. Paul began his career writing for The Streets of San Francisco and Barnaby Jones, plus he’s written for Crazy Like a Fox, Simon and Simon, Jake and the Fatman, Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Stephen King’s The Dead Zone and other network and cable series. A longtime friend of Jerry Houser’s, Paul arranged for Jerry’s visit on our program this week.

Our first hour will include a look inside the world of stand-up comedy as we welcome actor/comedian Dan Davidson. A regular at such comedy clubs as The Improvs, Funny Bones, and Catch a Rising Star, Dan has appeared on Comedy Central’s Short Attention Span Theater, FOX’s A Night of Comedy, and numerous radio shows, plus he has performed with the likes of David Alan Grier, Bobby Slayton, Brett Butler and Kevin Pollak.

Dan Davidson has a supporting role opposite Josh Brolin in the action crime thriller Sicario: Day of the Soldado, which opens in theaters everywhere on Friday, June 29. We’ll ask Dan how he came about that role (and what he looks for when considering a part in general, whether for comedy or drama); what his thought process is when he puts together a stand-up routine; and how watching Charlie Callas on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson first inspired him to become a comedian.

]]>http://blog.ksav.org/?feed=rss2&p=14560Adam Tsekhman and The Films of Michael Curtiz: Next on TVChttp://blog.ksav.org/?p=1453
http://blog.ksav.org/?p=1453#commentsTue, 19 Jun 2018 19:21:15 +0000http://blog.ksav.org/?p=1453Actor and writer Adam Tsekhman and author and film historian Alan Rode will join us this weekend on TV CONFIDENTIAL, Friday at 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org.

If you watch DC’s Legends of Tomorrow on The CW, you know Adam Tsekhman as Gary Green, the bumbling, neurotic government agent who works for The Time Bureau. If you watch the History Channel original series Six, you know him as oil billionaire Yuri Petrov. Adam has also appeared on such top network, cable and streaming shows as Hawaii Five-0, 2 Broke Girls, Transparent, 24, NCIS: Los Angeles, How I Met Your Mother, The Young and the Restless, Rizzoli & Isles and The Mentalist, while his film credits include the upcoming action featureDragged Across Concrete, starring Vince Vaughn and Mel Gibson, which is slated for release later this year.

Adam originally set out to become a businessman, but idle curiosity led him to a career as an actor and writer. We will ask him about that, plus we’ll talk about some of the various comedy projects he has in the works, one of which is a reboot of Americanistan, a comedy pilot about a group of Western reporters who take on the Middle East. Adam Tsekhman will join us in our second hour.

Calendar year 2018 marks the 75th anniversary of the widespread release of Casablanca. With that in mind, film historian Alan Rode will join us in our first hour as we spotlight the career of Michael Curtiz, the colorful, instinctual yet often controversial Academy Award-winning director whose best known films include Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mildred Pierce, The Adventures of Robin Hoodand White Christmas. Though Casablanca certainly cemented him into cinematic history, Curtiz had already left his mark as a filmmaker and stylist at Warner Bros. throughout the 1930s, and in his native Hungary throughout the 1920s, producing and directing a wide array of films, shaping the early days of Warner Bros. Pictures while also embodying the entire studio system.

Alan’s latest book, Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film, is a comprehensive biography and filmography of the Oscar-winning director that also provides a window into the history of film, from early 20th century Europe to Hollywood’s golden era, and the colorful people who brought it to life. Though Alan’s book does not shy away from the abrasive side of Curtiz—including his frequent clashes with actors such as Errol Flynn and James Cagney, not to mention his often brutal work schedules—it debunks several myths about Curtiz, while also showing how he served as a mentor to John Garfield, Doris Day, Elvis Presley and other pop culture icons. We’ll cover these topics and more, including Curtiz’s brief foray into television with John Frankenheimer, and how he came to direct what is unquestionably the best feature film adaptation of the Perry Mason novels that Warners produced in the 1930s.

If you grew up watching television in the ’50s, ’60s and early 1970s, you know that part of the fun of TV back then were the ubiquitous—and often ingenious—animated commercials for Cap’n Crunch, Sugar Crisp, Lucky Charms, Froot Loops, Fruity Pebbles, Quisp and Quake, Trix, Count Chocula, Franken Berry and numerous other popular breakfast cereals made by Kellogg’s, Post, Quaker, Ralston-Purina and other manufacturers. Much of these appeal of these commercials is the host of animated characters that are still popular today, including Tony the Tiger, Snap, Crackle and Pop, Lucky the Leprechaun, the Trix Rabbit and the Cheerios Kid. These cereal characters became big stars not only through their TV commercials, but through merchandise such as comic books, stuffed toys and, in some cases, their own TV series.

Originally published in 1993, For God, Country and Coca-Cola was recently revised and updated with new information on the history and future of Coca-Cola, including a look at how Coca-Cola and Pepsi, once rivals in the “cola wars,” are now united in the “new cola wars”—despite the fact that both are considered the primary culprits behind the obesity epidemic. The new edition also documents beyond the shadow of a doubt that Coca-Cola originally contained cocaine; discusses the origins of such famous TV campaigns as “The Hilltop Ad” (as well as the differences in how Coke and Pepsi advertise their products), and reveals the original formula used by Frank Mason Robinson, the man who not only gave Coca-Cola its name, but wrote the name in the Spencerian script that became the product’s trademark.

]]>http://blog.ksav.org/?feed=rss2&p=14510Michele Lee, plus Sex and The City and Us: Next on TVChttp://blog.ksav.org/?p=1449
http://blog.ksav.org/?p=1449#commentsTue, 05 Jun 2018 22:00:59 +0000http://blog.ksav.org/?p=1449Singer/actress Michele Lee and television historian and author Jennifer Armstrong will join us this weekend on TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing Friday at 7pm ET and PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org.

Tony Award-nominated and Emmy Award-nominated singer/actress Michele Lee joins us this weekend on TV Confidential. Known around the world as Karen Fairgate MacKenzie in all 344 episodes, and all fourteen seasons, of the landmark CBS series Knots Landing, Michele Lee, of course, left her mark on Broadway long before Knots, starring in the productions of Vintage ’60and Bravo Giovanni before her breakout role as Rosemary opposite Robert Morse in the original Broadway production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Michele, of course, repeated the role of Rosemary for the film version of How to Succeed, while her other feature film and TV-movie credits include Disney’s The Love Bug, The Comic with Dick Van Dyke, Bud and Lou, Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story, and as Ben Stiller’s mother in Along Came Polly. She was also the first woman to produce, direct, co-write and star in a motion picture for television, the award-winning and critically acclaimed Color Me Perfect for Lifetime Television.

This past Sunday, May 13 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the broadcast of the series finale of Knots Landing. Michele has a fun anecdote about that, which she’ll share with you, plus we’ll ask her about The Love Bug; her approach to playing Madame Morrible on Broadway in Wicked; her acclaimed performance as country music superstar Dottie West in Big Hearts and Broken Dreams, one of the most successful TV-movies in CBS history; the back story of Seesaw, the Broadway musical for which Michele received a Tony nomination; and more. Michele Lee will join us in our second hour.

As long as we are commemorating dates, Jennifer Armstrong will also join us this weekend to mark the twentieth anniversary of the premiere of Sex and the City, the iconic comedy drama starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis that not only changed the television landscape by making HBO a legitimate player in the world of scripted television series, but changed lives across the gender spectrum, across the sexual orientation spectrum and around the world. The first cable TV series to win an Emmy Award, Sex and the City reshaped the cultural perception of single women, sex, dating and marriage. Along the way it also directed the way many women dressed, elevated drinking culture to a social obligation in some circles, foisted brunch upon an unsuspecting nation, and, above all, demonstrated that life-changing love comes in all forms beyond heterosexual marriage and nuclear family.

Jennifer’s latest book, Sex and the City and Us: How Four Single Women Changed the Way We Think, Live and Love, walks you through the history of the show that, in many respects, changed the way in which television shows have been made for network, cable and streaming platforms over the past two decades, while also paving the way for the so-called second Golden Age of Television. We’ll about the origins of Sex, its controversial finale, the differences between the Carrie Bradshaw character on the series and how she was originally portrayed in Candace Bushnell’s columns, the alleged “feud” between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall (and the extent to which one existed at all), and more. Jennifer Armstrong joins in our first hour.